


You fix a bird, you buy a cage.

by magicites



Category: Kamen Rider OOO
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Other, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-17 01:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2291186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicites/pseuds/magicites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You fix a man, and</i>
  <br/><i>You fix a man, and he flies away.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> <br/>She wanted nothing more than to hold onto them forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You fix a bird, you buy a cage.

**Author's Note:**

> Eight months ago, I watched this quirky show about a boy, a girl, and their pet asshole. Eight months ago, I finished said show, and had my heart utterly broken in a way that completely and utterly wrecked me. So I wrote this. To quote past me: "im fucked up over bird monsters. this didn’t make me feel better. i’m still fucked up over bird monsters."
> 
> That remains true to this day. Though my fucked up-ed-ness over bird monsters never quite left me, it only reignited stronger than ever when I rewatched OOO about a month ago. This show means a lot to me in ways I can't really explain outside of vague hand gestures and the word Important. Anyways, I re-read this recently, and it's one of my favorite one-shots that I've ever written, so I think it belongs here. Enjoy!

She thinks of Ankh often.

It isn’t that she sees traces of him in the world around her - it could never be anything that poetic. He didn’t leave an impossibly large footprint; very few know of him, and even fewer care. He’s influenced her in a way that no one else could, but she is nearly alone in that regard.

She thinks of him the most when she’s with Shingo. They’ve shared the same body; the same muscles wrapped over the same bone structure, and yet they couldn’t possibly be more different.

The way they each move -

(Shingo walking along with his head held high, confident and happy; Ankh prowling through the street, like a crow looking for prey) -

\- the way they each smile -

(Shingo’s fills her with a slow-spreading warmth, like the sun on her back on a chilly spring afternoon; Ankh’s burns and tears into her, caustic and knife-sharp)

\- even the way their mouths move as they form the same words.

Hina thinks of this as she watches Shingo move through the kitchen, obviously looking for something sweet to eat. He grabs a freshly-baked cookie from the plate next to her, completely ignoring the freezer full of ice cream behind them.

She wonders why she doesn’t just get rid of it already.

* * *

Very few things can shock Eiji these days. He’s seen almost every corner of the world, and he’s stared straight into the depths of humanity’s darkness without flinching.

(He feels it within himself sometimes. Those moments when he longs to rise above the people around him and keep them where they can be safe and loved, are infrequent, but terrifying. He’s tasted godhood, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be rid of that craving ever again.)

The first place he travels to is Egypt. Chiyoko gives him a knowing smile the first time he sees her over video after arriving. He isn’t sure what to make of that.

The aftershocks of revolution still send the country into tremors, so Eiji tends to travel through the more remote villages, where the people are untainted by anger and bloodshed. The one he stays in now is small, but filled to the brim with those who treat him as one of their own.

On a night where his only warmth comes from the stars shimmering above his head, he catches one of the village girls approaching him.

He closes his hand tightly around the broken medal in his palm, and ignores the light tingle of pain running up and down his arm. She crouches down next to him, and points at his fist. “Are you holding that coin again?”

This girl is one of his favorite people here. She’s barely a teenager, but she’s has the wit of a butcher’s knife, and isn’t afraid to speak her mind. He didn’t realize how badly he missed that brutal, frank honesty until he met her.

His Arabic is rusty, and he’s never managed to eradicate his accent, so he answers her with a nod instead.

“Why do you like it so much? What does it mean?”

He searches through his vocabulary, looking for the right word to use. She’s clearly getting impatient, but this is something he can’t mess up.

Finally, he finds what he wants to say.

“It’s a promise.”

* * *

Her senior thesis is to create an entire collection. Each piece has to relate to the overall theme, and that theme has to be summed up in a single word.

She knows her theme before the professor finishes speaking.

Her eye for design is clear, but what slows her is her need for perfection. She spends hours upon hours at Cous Coussier, drawing out design after design. They litter the counter and spill onto the floor, a waterfall of failed visions.

When Shingo isn’t on duty, he becomes Hina’s executive assistant. It’s a job of convenience, mostly - he’s always willing to pick up more materials for her, provided she remembers to eat and sleep at regular intervals.

Cloaking Shingo in the colors of her collection isn’t quite right. He doesn’t fit any of the shades; they’re all too intense. He’s a man who belongs in washed out hues and neutrals, not the vibrancy she sees in her head. Using him as a model would only complicate things.

She runs over her budget when only half of her pieces are completed. Luckily, Hina’s more than willing to swallow her pride, and ends up in Kougami’s office, begging him for a loan.

(“Your desire is magnificent!” He shouts, putting a last swirl of frosting over the cake on his desk. “Miss Satonaka!”

Satonaka gives her a single, golden card. “Use as much as you need,” she instructs. “You’ll be billed after you finish your collection.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Kougami!” Hina says, bowing deeply. She blinks rapidly, trying to banish her tears of relief.

When she stands up, he puts the cake into her arms. “Happy birthday!” He shouts. She reads the words carefully written onto the cake in cherry syrup.

How he knew the title of her collection is something she’ll never figure out.)

She finishes everything a week before her deadline hits, and spends her extra time showing Eiji each individual piece. She pours details over him, reciting the story behind each individual piece. Each represents it’s own moment; it’s own unique facet that adds to the collection as a whole.

It tells a story. One that doesn’t belong to her, but one dear to her heart nonetheless.

On the day of her presentation, her professors are awe-struck. No other student worked with such risky colors - vibrant, explosive reds dominate her collection. Peacock feathers adorn the leggings of one outfit; spikes shaped after condor talons adorn the boots of another. It’s the biggest risk she’s ever taken, but one well-worth it. No piece is symmetrical, covered in an uneven coating of jagged edges and sharp contrasts.

(Ankh would be proud. She is certain of this.)

“So, what do you call this theme?” One of her professors asks, after her collection in it’s entirety has been displayed.

Hina glows with pride.

“Tajador.”

* * *

 

There are times when Eiji feels like he’s losing his grip on reality.

The mountains of northern Africa are chaotic and impossibly lonely. The days when he spots the local wildlife are blessings. Stray jackals become his close friends, and herds of wild boars become the family members he never gets to see often enough.

It’s here that he feels strange sensations. The moments are rare, but they stay with him for hours afterward. A pressure on his shoulder, like a hand resting on him, is followed by a sharp prick a little further down his arm that leaves him baffled late into the night.

The winds carry voices to him - voices that they have no right or reason to hold. They’re only ever one syllable sounds, but they dig into him and leave him wild-eyed and grasping for answers.

Eiji dismisses it all as hallucinations due to a lack of human interaction. He hasn’t heard a voice that wasn’t his own in weeks; thinking that the one person whose voice he’d do anything to hear again is speaking to him is only natural.

The only thing he’s currently certain of is his solitude.

(If only he knew that it’s the biggest lie he’s ever convinced himself to believe. He is never alone, not anymore.)

* * *

Shingo seems to know everything about her. It may come with his job, or it may come from how close they are, but she can never hide her thoughts from him.

It’s true that she misses him every day. She never thought that she would (or even could), and yet there’s a void left in her heart that nothing can ever fill.

She keeps pieces of the Tajador collection in her room, hidden away inside of boxes and behind stacks of accessories she hasn’t worn in years. When Shingo’s gone, she pulls them out and arranges them all over the floor of the main room, matching each article to a piece of Ankh she still treasures.

The door clicks unlocked, sending Hina into a frenzied attempt to cover up what she brought out. By the time Shingo’s walked into the main room, she’s positive that the evidence is completely hidden.

He picks up a scrap of red satin -

\- (the same kind he left everywhere, as if he could mark his territory with a piece of outrageously bright fabric) -

\- and gives her a look that only contains warm sympathy.

“Hina,” he says, and the way he says her name causes a wave of comfort to wash over her, “you don’t need to hide any of this.”

“But…”

“You love him, don’t you?”

She nods faintly. There are very few things she wouldn’t do to bring him back at this very moment.

“It’s natural that you miss him, then. There’s no shame in that.”

“I know,” she sighs. “It’s ok, Shingo. I’ll be fine.”

He smiles, and lightly ruffles her hair with a single hand before leaving her alone. She clenches her fists. Her hands feel impossibly empty.

She thinks of the night before everything changed. She remembers holding their hands, Ankh’s and Eiji’s, and feeling as if she could burst. She wanted nothing more than to hold onto them forever.

It’s what she wants the most now.

(It’s a want that’ll never leave.)

* * *

At night, Eiji dreams of Ankh.

The setting is always nondescript; it doesn’t matter. It never does. The only other objects with them are the ones that Ankh touches, breathing life into the blank world around them.

Right now, he perches on a chair, ice cream hanging out of his mouth. The look on his face must be distantly related to a glare, but it only makes Eiji grin.

“You know, it feels good to have company. Makes traveling a bit easier.”

Ankh tears the ice cream out of his mouth. “You idiot.” He spits, shooting him a disgusted look. “Did you ever actually believe that you’re alone?”

Eiji looks down at the medal in his hand. Here, it’s one cohesive piece, held together by a glue that he hasn’t discovered yet. “You’ve been here all along, haven’t you?”

Ankh stays silent. He goes back to eating his ice cream, one bite at a time.

When Eiji awakes, he can only remember faint glimpses of his dream.

What he does remember is enough to propel him up, and keep him moving. One foot in front of the other.

The sunrise bathes him in red.


End file.
